Tallinn Marathon

After strolling through the old town in Tallinn and visiting the Ukrainian restaurant “Odessa” on our first night in Tallinn, it was finally morning and time to go racing. Feeling strong, Elin and I set off with thousands of other runners through Lindamäe Park, before doing a couple of loops towards the west. Pacing around 4:30 min/km, I was running next to Elin for the first eight kilometres with an estimated finishing time of around 3 hour and 17 minutes. At the second aid station, I fell behind a bit, but I was not far behind her at the 10 km marker when passing 45 minutes and 31 seconds into the race.

Seeing on my Suunto watch that my heart rate had been 180+ for those first ten kilometres, it was obvious that I had been going out way too hard. Maybe it was insufficient recovery time since Jönköping Marathon two weeks ago, maybe it was the cold that has been lurking in my body for the last few days but, at the end of the day, I think the most honest explanation is that I simply did not have the fitness level to sustain this high pace. Once Elin had disappeared ahead of me and I got the half marathon marker, my expected finishing time was down to 3 hours and 40 minutes, making me realize that the race was essentially lost. Still, I kept going with a heart rate between 160-170 for the next ten kilometres until I figured that I would not even be able to run sub four hours after exhausting myself so much in the first ten kilometres. As such, I started walking sections to get my heart rate down while trying to enjoy more of my surroundings.

Ultimately, I finished with an official time of 4 hours and 9 minutes, feeling completely defeated. Soon afterwards, my spirits bounced back though when I learned that Elin had indeed done what I had set out to do, finishing with a new impressive PR of 3 hours and 19 minutes! Just, wow!

After recovering a bit, Elin and I then had a lovely evening in Tallinn, first dipping our feet in the Baltic next to the brutalist concrete amphitheatre “Linnahalla” built for the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics before enjoying a fabulous Georgian dinner in the garden of the restaurant “Tblisi” which I can wholeheartedly recommend.